


Dilation

by twentyfourblackbirds



Category: Inception (2010), Kingsman: The Secret Service (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Alternate Universe - Inception, Crossover, Eventual Relationships, Identity, M/M, Non-Graphic Violence, Plot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-04
Updated: 2015-04-04
Packaged: 2018-03-21 04:53:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,189
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3678297
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twentyfourblackbirds/pseuds/twentyfourblackbirds
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Mum’s been gone almost nine years now. She’s in an urn next to JB the Fourth. Daisy’s peachy, graduated from Kingston and became a pharmacist. She’s out in the country with her husband,” Eggsy resolutely does not make eye contact with Harry. People who die and then show up suddenly to steal your whiskey do not get that courtesy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dilation

He’s well into his sixties, the day a dead man walks through his door. His spoon clatters back into his bowl. At his feet, JB the Fifth begins to growl.

“Eggsy,” says the ghost.

“You’re fucking dead,” says Eggsy, because forty-some years have done absolutely nothing to temper his foul mouth.

Harry Hart looks at him with sorrow. “No.”

Eggsy looks from Harry to his oatmeal back to Harry, and settles on the oatmeal. After all, it’s important to maintain regular bowel movements every morning. He resumes his breakfast with a purposefully aggrieved air.

Harry sits down across from him. He says after a while, “I like what you’ve done with the place. Or haven’t, rather.”

Eggsy grunts. He hardly notices the chintzy gimcrackery decorating the walls anymore, the same way he hardly notices his nose. “It’s your house. I liked it well enough. Although I’m afraid your brandy is long gone. Replaced with a Macallan ’39.”

“I’ll have a sample, since it comes with your recommendation,” Harry gets up and helps himself to the liquor cabinet, pouring himself a generous finger or two. Instead of sitting back down, however, he paces the room restlessly like a tiger in a cage.

“Do gentlemen really imbibe at seven o’clock in the morning?” Eggsy says crossly, apparently having become both crotchety and judgmental in his old age.

Harry looks over the top of his glass at Eggsy. “It’s five PM somewhere,” he murmurs, but his delivery isn’t humorous at all.

An unhappy silence descends. Harry breaks it by saying, “Tell me about your mum and Daisy.”

“Mum’s been gone almost nine years now. She’s in an urn next to JB the Fourth. Daisy’s peachy, graduated from Kingston and became a pharmacist. She’s out in the country with her husband,” Eggsy resolutely does not make eye contact with Harry. People who die and then show up suddenly to steal your whiskey do not get that courtesy.

“Kingsman? Roxy?” Harry prompts.

Eggsy frowns. “I retired from Kingsman five years ago. I haven’t kept up with them. Roxy… I…”

“Roxy?”

“I…” Eggsy pushes the oatmeal away and presses a palm against his forehead. “I have a bad headache.”

Harry sits down again, placing a gentle hand on his. “Tell me how I died.”

Eggsy’s breathing is too labored, his eyes blinking too rapidly. “Six years ago. On a mission.”

“How did -” Harry doesn’t get any further because he has to duck to avoid a spoon aimed straight at his right eye. He dodges to the left and barely avoids the bowl that follows, which hits the wall and shatters. JB the Fifth is snarling dangerously loudly, hackles up, and this JB isn’t a pug, but a fully-grown bulldog with an underbite.

“You died on a fucking mission in the middle of Siberia, you fucking bastard,” Eggsy refuses to let himself cry in front of a dead man. “I asked you not to go but you went anyway and they couldn’t find a body so you died in Siberia, instead of in bed next to me.”

Harry looks down at the ring on Eggsy’s finger, and seems to be momentarily rendered speechless.

It’s not quite the dramatic or meaningful scene it ought to have been, since the soundtrack has been set to JB’s snarls and growls. He circles and snaps at Harry, showing all of his teeth.

Harry says with genuine regret, “I'm sorry.” Then he pulls out a gun and shoots JB the Fifth.

It isn’t a blank.

There’s a beat, and then Eggsy slams a fist down on the table, breaking it in half, and he’s screaming some garbled mix of “you fucking bastard,” and “I’ll kill you,” and he’s launching himself at the reincarnation of Satan who’s in Harry’s body. This Harry, however, is a good bit younger than him and deflects his blows readily, eventually wrestling him to the ground and pinning his hands to his back. Eggsy’s left cheek is pressed into the cold linoleum as his snot and tears drip to the floor and mingle with the spilled oatmeal.

Harry maintains his iron vice on Eggsy’s arms until his chest stops heaving and his breathing slows.

“I know what this is,” Eggsy says finally, swallowing a hiccup in his voice. “It’s just a bloody nightmare. I thought the oysters last night tasted a bit shit. I’m surprised my teeth haven’t started falling out yet.”

Harry winces at this. “I assure you, you are not…” he pauses slightly, “hallucinating.”

Eggsy doesn’t let up. “Then I died peacefully fifteen minutes ago, over my breakfast, JB at my feet. This is some godawful level of hell. You’re a demon sent here to torture me.”

“Eggsy,” says Harry-the-demon, “I need to show you something. If I let go of you, do you promise not to harm me?”

“I promise no such thing,” Eggsy says rudely, but it’s all bluster. He would never seriously hurt Harry, and he thinks the demon knows this, because Eggsy should’ve been able to put up a much better fight than he did. In any case, Demon-Harry releases his grip.

In his hand is a medal.

“That’s my -” Eggsy’s hand flies to his neck. His bare neck.

He’d thrown his medal into the English Channel when Harry had died.

Wordlessly, Harry places the totem in his open palm. Eggsy’s thumb automatically traces over the back, searching for six engraved digits that aren’t there.

His world trembles.

“I’m -”

“Dreaming.”

“JB -”

“Your projection.”

“We’re not married,” he can’t stop himself before the words blurt out of his mouth. He flushes crimson.

“No. Although I might be persuaded otherwise, considering the silver fox you apparently become in your golden years,” Harry deadpans, not batting an eyelash.

Eggsy gapes at him before Harry continues on as if nothing had happened, “Eggsy, we’re in limbo.”

“Shut up.”

“It’s not a joke.”

“Shit. Has the sedative worn off enough to get out?”

Harry shakes his head in negation. “We have another,” he looks down at his wristwatch, trying to do the math, “five years and two months.”

Eggsy lets out a low whistle. Then he looks up sharply at Harry. “How do I know you’re you?”

“Oxfords, not brogues.”

Eggsy accepts the password with a sigh of defeat. “I really cocked up the mission, didn’t I.”

“Actually, you saved it,” Harry replies. “Bled out on the floor of the Ritz, but you stopped the projections coming through. I stayed around long enough to confirm inception, then came down after you.”

Eggsy half-frowns. “I... I don’t remember.”

“Not to worry. You’ll have five years to remember.”

He grunts nonchalantly, but his eyes are shrewdly watching Harry. “So you were that worried, were you, that you followed me straight down to limbo? You could easily have let the sedative wear off first, you know.”

Harry adjusts his cuff-links, doesn't quite look at Eggsy. “Yes, well.” A pause. More cuff-link fiddling. “I’m quite fond of you, if you must know.”

Eggsy’s eyes meet Harry’s, and he can’t seem stop the smirk sliding across his face. “In that case,” he says, “you can make me another bowl of oatmeal.”

 


End file.
